


Fevered Haunts of the Past

by Moon_Rose (Moonrose91)



Series: Horse Raised Knowledge [4]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Cauterizing, Fever, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moon_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bullet wound gets infected and d'Artagnan begins to ramble.</p><p>Aramis only understands every one word out of five, but Porthos quickly begins to piece together what he's saying and it turns his stomach.</p><p>(PLEASE read the Beginning Notes! It has important information needed to understand what language is being spoken when.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fevered Haunts of the Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stormfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormfire/gifts).



> D'ARTAGNAN GOES INTO THE FACT HIS MOTHER DIED IN A FIRE AND HE HEARD IT! Porthos vomits. It isn't pleasant all around. It made my stomach churn. Because of my imagination, it was worse than Extended Edition Denethor Death Scene.
> 
> ** Language Key When d'Art is Speaking **
> 
> _Language of Gascony_
> 
> **Spanish**
> 
> _**Italian** _
> 
> Stormfire's Prompt: Would you please make a story where d'Art has a fever either through being sick or hurt and he tells the story of his past.
> 
> I picked...hurt. Because where d'Art is concerned, I am _cruel_.

"Aramis, get down!" d'Artagnan shouted and a thin shoulder dug into his side as a gun went off.

There was a cry of pain and d’Artagnan hit the ground as Aramis turned, pistol raised, in time to see a knife bury itself into the throat of the man who had shot their youngest.

Silence reigned in their campsite where they had been ambushed in (and Aramis was _refused_ to lose another friend to the woods, to an _ambush_ ) and he dropped to one knee next to the Gascon, searching for the bullet wound, as the other two joined him on the forest floor. “How bad is it?” Athos asked as Aramis let out a soft curse in Spanish, d’Artagnan shivering as he stared up at them in wide-eyed confusion.

“Bad. The bullet is still in there, and I don’t want to work on him here. On the other hand, moving him might actually kill him,” he stated as he pressed a gloved hand to the injury, right above his ribs, wincing at the way d’Artagnan cried out.

“Little idiot, starting to make a habit of shoving people out of the way,” Porthos cursed as began to tug off his belt, offering it to Aramis without even having to be asked while Athos removed his cloak.

Athos then paused, one hand on his main gauche, and he glanced at Aramis. “What will you do?” he asked.

“Operate here. I don’t have much a choice, because riding with him to the nearest inn, which is a day’s ride from here, with the musket ball in him? It might just kill him, while operating here might just _almost_ kill him, if the wound gets infected,” Aramis stated and Athos nodded.

“I’ll bring you your medical bag before I get the horses tacked up and ready to go for when we do depart, and break camp. Can you do this alone Porthos?” Athos inquired as he lay out his cloak across the ground, offering a clean enough spot as any of them could manage in the middle of the forest.

“I’ll be fine. Who will carry him?” Porthos answered, already moving to start a fire nearby, which had Athos’s stomach churning at the idea of having to cauterize d’Artagnan’s wound.

“It’ll have to be Roger, otherwise Portia might just climb over the other horse to get to him,” Aramis stated and Athos nodded.

“Probably for the best,” Athos stated and stood, heading back up to their camp.

Their horses were unharmed, despite how close the fighting had come to them, but they were fretting, being led by Portia, who was straining at the end of her lead. “Easy,” Athos murmured though gave it up for lost when the horses didn’t calm.

Time was of the essence, and Athos focused breaking camp, insuring that everything was put up, the fire full put out, and nothing left behind. Once reassured that everything was packed, Athos began to tack up the horses, only Roger standing like stone, even as the strangled sounds of d’Artagnan’s screams of pain had Portia nearly snapping her lead to get down to him.

Athos was nearly yanked right off his feet when Portia tried to shove past him when the sound of burning skin and d’Artagnan’s final cutting off scream almost too much for the mare. “Loyal girl,” Athos praised before he managed to get her tacked up and tied next to Petite.

He then grabbed Roger’s reins and walked down, the gelding following quietly.

*~*~*

It was nightfall before they rode up to the inn, and d’Artagnan was shivering violently.

Porthos was on the ground, helping to get d’Artagnan down before Athos could even consider calling out for help. He dismounted as he listened to the horses breathing heavily before he nodded to the inn. “I’ll take care of the horses. You two take care of d’Artagnan,” Athos ordered as Aramis dismounted.

“Already on it,” Aramis stated as he removed the saddlebags, Athos quickly taking control of the four horses.

Well, as quickly as one man could take control of four horses at any rate. Athos was more than thankful when a boy came out of the inn to help by taking Tristan and Petite off his hands, allowing him to focus on Portia and Roger.

In a rare switch of personality, Roger was a calm, placid farm horse while Portia worked herself into a panic, trying to get back to the inn, and the young Gascon farm boy inside.

*~*~*

The fever set in that night, much to Aramis’s fury and frustration. He spent an hour cursing their attackers, the campsite, and his own skills in French before switching to Spanish for another hour, and, after that, falling silent. The entire time pressing a cool cloth to d’Artagnan’s forehead, switching it out periodically.

Athos had taken over after that, doing the same, though he occasionally he lifted d’Artagnan’s head to wipe along the back of his neck. It was during Athos’s vigil that he began to murmur under his breath, forehead furrowing, and no amount of gentle murmuring and reassurances he was safe eased that.

It was toward the end of his shift that d’Artagnan let out a shout in another language, waking both Porthos and Aramis with a start.

*~*~*

Porthos knows every word and variation, in every language he ever picked up, of ‘mother’. It was in his youth, in hopes of finding his mother after she died when he was five, though at the time he had thought she had merely…disappeared.

He still isn’t sure what he thought, back then, but he knows, “ **Mama!** ” when he hears it.

It just takes him longer than it should to realize it is Italian, mainly because whatever d’Artagnan is speaking in, he doesn’t keep it that way. Porthos struggles awake, wincing upon discovering that Athos is struggling to keep a flailing d’Artagnan on the bed. He has, in the few hours he and Aramis have been asleep, taken a turn for the worse.

D’Artagnan was babbling, Porthos only understanding ‘Mama’ and ‘house’ and, he thinks at one point, ‘hurry.’ Aramis frowns briefly, hesitating at the stream of multiple languages, before shrugging, and Porthos rushes over to grip d’Artagnan’s arms, preparing himself for a worse fight, when d’Artagnan just falls limp as he sobs. “ **Mama,** _you have to get out!_ **Mama, _the house the house!_** _Mama,_ **hurry up, _you have to hurry_**!” d’Artagnan begged as Porthos carefully kept his arms pinned to his chest, avoiding the infected wound, as Athos held onto his thighs.

Porthos blinks a bit when he realizes he knows this. Spanish and Italian, those are hard to change, but he’s awake now, adrenaline, waking up, but it is the other language. The one the elderly thief had taught him with amusement.

(“ _Make everyone think you’re a country bumpkin,”_ he had teased, and had laughed upon learning it worked.)

D’Artagnan is twisting again, fighting them as he begins to choke on his sobs. “ **Mama, Mama! _The house is on fire_**!” d’Artagnan began to sob, clawing at his chest and Porthos swallows back the bile.

 _“Mama!_ **Mama! _Mama, don’t leave me alone_**!” d’Artagnan begged and Porthos pressed his forehead to d’Artagnan’s, starting up a string of soothing words in all the languages he knows as d’Artagnan dissolves into babble that makes no sense (that seems like Spanish, but isn’t, and Italian using the rules of French and he doesn’t know what it is anymore), but it doesn’t help.

He fights them through the night, trying to get out of Porthos’s grip on his arms, and, when Porthos can understand him, calling for his mother to get out of the burning house before falling limp to sob.

Porthos doesn’t need to hear some of it to know that d’Artagnan heard, and maybe even saw, his mother die in that house fire.

When d’Artagnan finally calms, falling into mumbles and shaky stillness, Porthos finds a bucket and vomits.

He doesn’t tell the others what has him shaking, makes his stomach churn, even as Aramis presses a hand to his forehead, frowning.

Because no one should have to hear someone they love burn alive, let alone see it.

*~*~*

The fever drops the next day and within another, the infection begins to clear.

Porthos says he’ll stay with d’Artagnan when Athos and Aramis mention the need to continue to Paris. They nod and take off when d’Artagnan pushes for it.

Portia very nearly undoes all of their good work when d’Artagnan finally gets to see his mare, the mare practically knocking him to the ground in her exuberance to greet him.

They are on their way to Paris when Porthos asks, “Did you really watch your mother burn in a house fire or was that just the fever talking?”

It is blunt and it is probably cruel, but he has to know. “I heard her. I…sometimes think I saw her and other times I think that I imagined it all. But I heard her. It was enough,” d’Artagnan answers after a time and Porthos nods.

“Well, we’ll do our best to keep you away from fires,” Porthos stated and d’Artagnan laughs.

It is hollow, and pained in more ways than one, but it is there.

Porthos takes what he can get.

**Author's Note:**

> This...uh...didn't go how I expected at all.
> 
> Like...at all.
> 
> So, Stormfire, if this wasn't, exactly, what you were expecting, I can write another thing, but just...it exploded and got away from me.
> 
> Well, hope you enjoy.


End file.
